Team Stats

Shots (on goal)

Saves

Fouls

Corner Kicks

Offsides

SANTA CLARA, Calif. - The No. 10 Santa Clara
women's soccer team (7-1-2) remained unbeaten in its last six games
and improved its current win streak to three, defeating Oregon,
2-1, tonight at Buck Shaw Stadium. Junior defender Margueritte
Aozasa found the net for the first time this season, scoring
both goals for the Broncos, one in each half.

It was all Santa Clara early in the match. Aozasa put the
Broncos up early with her first goal in the ninth minute on the
team's third corner kick of the game. Bridgett
Miller got her third point of the season with an assist,
serving the ball to Aozasa near the penalty spot. Aozasa rose
above a pair of Duck defenders to head the ball past Oregon
goalkeeper Cody Miles.

It would be 25 minutes into the game by the time the Ducks were
able to register a shot, hit by Jen Stoltenberg, but the try was
blocked. Oregon's first attempt on net came at 34:05 and was
saved by junior goalie Bianca
Henninger. At that point, Santa Clara already had four
shots and six corner kicks in the match.

The Broncos continued their recent trend of scoring near
halftime, with Aozasa's second goal occurring at 49:03. This
time, freshman Sarah
Jackson's corner kick service bypassed a few players from both
teams close to the near post and bounced to Aozasa, who finished
the half volley from around six yards out for the 2-0 lead.

"Well, funny story on Margueritte's goals," said head coach
Jerry Smith. "We of course do our individual meetings with the
players almost every week, and in my individual meeting with
Margueritte this week I said, 'If I'm going to continue to invest
on sending a center back up on corner kicks, you're going to have
to start producing some points and goal for us.' She's a good
header of the ball, but it is quite a risk to take one of your best
defensive players and put them all the way at the front of your
team. Coincidentally, at the end of the week, she gets both goals
on corner kicks so good for her. I'm really happy for her and feel
good about her stepping up on something very specific we talked
about in our individual meeting this week."

Stoltenberg, the Ducks' leading scorer this season, halved Santa
Clara's less than five minutes after Aozasa's second strike with a
textbook finish of her own, taking Taylor Jones' over-the-top ball
and niftily footing it into the left corner out of Henninger's
reach.

The Broncos rebounded back immediately after the goal, rattling
off three shots within five minutes of Oregon's tally. One of
those attempts by redshirt senior Amanda
Poach was saved by Miles, but not held on to and nearly found
its way into the goal on the rebound.

At the end of 90 minutes, the score remained 2-1 in favor of
Santa Clara. The Broncos were outshot by Oregon 12-9,
but made the most of their dangerous chances for the victory.
Henninger finished with three saves while Miles had two.

"They [Oregon] have a good counterattacking team," said
Smith. "They're quick, they're athletic they work very hard.
I'm always a little nervous playing a team that only has one game
on the weekend when we have two. We have to manage our total
minutes for our two games and they just throw everything at you
because they know that they get a week off. I thought they
looked very dynamic on counterattack today and created some good
chances but I thought our team overall did a fairly good job
defensively on Stoltenberg and their entire team."

"I'm really happy that all 18 players that we used in the match
contributed today," added Smith. "We used a lot of our depth
today after getting some players back from injury, but we took an
injury today in the first half, unfortunately, and we'll have to
wait and see how serious Jenny
LaPonte's injury is. Having those 18 players contribute today
helps save some of our energy for the Sunday game against UCLA
which will obviously be a big test for us."

Santa Clara wraps up this weekend with a match at UCLA on Sunday
at 1 p.m. The No. 15 Bruins are 6-2-1 and defeated San Diego,
2-0, earlier this evening.